


Silver Tipped Stakes

by sometimesweareturtles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Animal Instincts, Dubious Biology, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Minor Character Death, Protective Lance (Voltron), Self-Hatred, Vampire Keith (Voltron), Werewolf Culture, Werewolf Keith (Voltron), Werewolf Lance (Voltron), and not knowing how to handle each other in the same body, but it's not the character technically, but nothing more than itching and pulling out fur, i did not mean to make this this dark, it'll make sense if you read it don't worry, it's werewolf/vampire biology hating each other, just a warning the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, spookruary 2020, talks of self-harm, warring vampire and werewolf instincts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-22 16:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimesweareturtles/pseuds/sometimesweareturtles
Summary: Usually, Lance doesn’t want to bite anybody. But when he’s not thinking in his right mind, when he’s thinking with his wolf instead of his more human side, his jaws are his best defense, and, if stuck in a fight with a vampire that could possibly kill him, well. The difference between using your paws and using your teeth could mean life or death. So it isn’t really surprising that Lance had resorted to snapping at the vampire during the attack; if anything, it was to be expected.Which means it’s really not Lance’s fault. He’ll blame it on the wolf inside of him.But here he is; tired, aching, mouth too metallic tasting, and hiding in a cave with a vampire because he bit the damn boy’s leg.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 146





	Silver Tipped Stakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jilliancares](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/gifts), [melancholymango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholymango/gifts).



> This is for [jilliancares](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares) and [melancholymango's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholymango/pseuds/melancholymango) Spookruary 2020 event. I'd recommend you check them both out!
> 
> Warnings:  
> \- A bit of self hatred because (spoilers) in this fic, Keith is bit by a werewolf, and he is already a vampire. However, in this world vampires and werewolves like hate each other because of their instincts, kind of like how [humans are evolved to think snakes are a threat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeOrYPvUsTE). In the past, weres and vamps were one of the few threats to each other, so they developed instincts similar to those of a primate to snakes; they recognize them as a threat and are more aware of them than any other predator.  
> \- There are also talks of self-harm (such as pulling out teeth) but it doesn't go anything past itching and pulling fur out.  
> \- Also, there is some violence later on in the story, and minor character death, and near death experiences.
> 
> I'm also just going to mention that Lance calls himself Keith's "sire" and Keith his "offspring". They aren't actually related or anything; it's just werewolf terminology for someone who bites another/was bitten.

The whole problem starts out because Lance is overprotective. 

It’s not his fault, alright? His biology demands it. Wolves are notoriously loyal, and the scent of a vampire on his pack’s territory was enough to send him and his wolf into a fit of worry. His niece and nephew are visiting, and he knows that he can’t let some vampire get close to them; his mother still tells stories of the Old Wars, when vampires would drain pups dry and leave their bodies out like a taunting reminder. 

He just hadn’t anticipated how strong the vampire would actually be. 

It was a struggle. A fight that Lance hadn’t been prepared for, and while he’d only gone into the confrontation with the intention of leaving a few scratches and scaring the vampire off of his turf, he’d been forced to actually fight. 

Usually, Lance doesn’t want to bite anybody. But when he’s not thinking in his right mind, when he’s thinking with his wolf instead of his more human side, his jaws are his best defense, and, if stuck in a fight with a vampire that could possibly kill him, well. The difference between using your paws and using your teeth could mean life or death. So it isn’t really surprising that Lance had resorted to snapping at the vampire during the attack; if anything, it was to be expected. 

Which means it’s really not Lance’s fault. He’ll blame it on the wolf inside of him. 

But here he is; tired, aching, mouth too metallic tasting, and hiding in a cave with a vampire because he bit the damn boy’s leg. 

After the bite, the vampire had yelped and flung him back with one sharp shove. Lance, half warring with himself (the wolf side said to rip the vampire to pieces, while the human side was screaming because Lance had just bitten somebody - not just somebody, but a  _ vampire _ . Not only was that highly illegal, it was also  _ doubly  _ illegal), hadn’t anticipated the hit and had been flung back easily, whining as he crashed into the hard, cold earth. 

“What the fuck?!” the vampire boy had yelled. 

Lance had sprung back to his feet, snarling, trying to get his bearings back, but his head had hit the ground hard and he was too disoriented to do anything but snarl as the vampire had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and stomped off, muttering under his breath and limping slightly on his bitten leg. It was a humiliating sight; Lance, a huge wolf, as tall as the vampire and probably three times his weight, being dragged behind. His paws scrabbled at the ground, and after a second he managed to stand. The vampire’s hand was still wrapped too tight around his neck, clutching the skin there like he was a disobedient pup, and Lance resigned himself to following wherever the vampire wanted him to.

It is probably better this way, he soothed the wolf raging inside of him. The vampire was pretty evenly matched, even with Lance in his wolf form. Maybe if it was the night of the full moon and Lance was at the height of his power, but that was still three weeks away, and besides, now Lance was a sire. It was pretty looked down upon for any sire to hurt their offspring; it was the werewolf equivalent of parents attacking their children. He couldn’t run away and leave the vampire to change on his own; that would likely bite him in the ass, since the vampire could report him or just… act crazy.

Lance has never met a vampire-werewolf hybrid, and there are no stories of surviving ones, but there are rumors, bedtime stories at night of were-vamps going rogue, being unable to control the wolf or the vampire inside of them, wreaking havoc uncontrollably. He’s heard the nightmares from people, those who say that they not only hurt their surroundings but would end up turning on themselves. If they’re true, if Lance just created an even bigger threat than before, he needs to find out and he needs to be able to stop it before it gets anywhere near his pack.

Which leads him to where he is now: in a cave, with a bitten vampire, skin bruised under his fur and scruff stinging from the tight fist wrapped around it. The vampire is sitting in the back, leaning his head against the cold stone wall, face screwed up in a grimace and his pants rolled up, showing the slowly healing bite. Lance watches silently as the skin knits itself back together, muscles growing before his eyes. Vampires have pretty good healing abilities - werewolves, too, but mostly after the full moon. 

“This is all your fault,” the vampire snarls. 

“ _ You  _ intruded on my territory!” Lance objects. “You should know better than to come to my pack’s turf - and don’t tell me you can’t smell our border markers; you’re a vampire.”

“I was on the line,” the vampire snaps. “I wasn’t expecting to be attacked.”

“Probably because your entire species are dump stuck-up pricks,” Lance hisses. He bristles at the vampire, who still hasn’t opened his eyes. This only serves to piss Lance off more; who does this vampire think he is, waltzing into werewolf territory and thinking that there would be no repercussions? Can he really not even bother to look at Lance? Does he really think that he’s so much better than him that he can’t even bother to spare Lance one glance of his stupid, bloodshot vampire eyes?

“You attacked me!” the vampire yells. “And you - you  _ fucking bit me _ ! Do you see me trying to drink your blood and turn you? No! Don’t talk to me about  _ my  _ species being bad, because you’re the ones who obviously can’t control yourselves. I knew mutts had a thing for biting, but I didn’t know that they were so desperate that they would snap at anything that came into close contact with them.” 

Lance lets out a growl, suspiciously wolf-sounding, the irritation running through his veins making his body itch to turn again. He has to pause for a minute, has to close his eyes and take a deep breath in order to calm himself, before the wolf part of him rises again and he proves the vampire right by leaping at him and biting straight through his throat.

“Look,” Lance says harshly. “I already bit you, which is enough to get me sent to jail immediately, and I’d get an even worse punishment if I killed you. That makes me your sire now, so do you want help or not?”

“I don’t need help from a  _ werewolf _ ,” the vampire spits. This is apparently important enough for him to open his eyes (violet, one part of Lance’s mind remarks, and he wonders if that’s a vampire thing or something that’s unique to this boy), sending a glare Lance’s way. 

“Heads up, idiot, you’re a werewolf now, too!” Lance throws up his arms in exasperation, flopping back onto the dirt to stare in disappointment up at the dark cave ceiling. “And there’s no way you’re going to get through the first shift by yourself. Do you know how painful that is? Even with your buff vampireness or whatever you’re not gonna be able to handle it.”

“Sometimes the bites don’t stick,” the vampire says, and this tone of voice is different. It makes Lance sit up again, guilt worming its way into his stomach; this is less defensive, less angry than before, more desperate, almost fearful. Lance has never heard a vampire sound… vulnerable before. “It might be fine,” he insists, though both he and Lance can probably tell that he’s just trying to make himself feel better.

Lance drops his hands into his lap, slumping a little and signing. He can’t believe he’s going to do this, but… It is technically his fault, at least a little. He did bite the vampire, after all, even if it was well deserved. Lance should know better, shouldn’t have let the wolf side of him take control so easily, should have maybe chosen to try and talk the other boy off his pack’s territory before attacking him. And now he’s his sire, technically, which means that he has a responsibility for the vampire, even if he’s more than a little disagreeable. 

Lance has never wanted to be a sire. He’s grateful for Allura, who had turned his whole family decades ago when his sister became sick (his family hadn’t wanted her to suffer alone), but he’s never had any interest in doing it himself. Being a sire calls for providing for every possible need of a new werewolf, training them to find a balance with their wolf, and dealing with any… mental fallouts that might happen. Lance loves people, and he likes helping them, but becoming a werewolf is a painful process and he isn’t sure if even he’d want to go through it again if he had the choice. Still, what happens happens, and there’s no way to take back a bite; this vampire is now his burden to bear, since a sire is not supposed to hurt their offspring. 

Lance knows how bad the process of becoming a werewolf is, how much it can mess you up, both physically and mentally. It’s not just social obligation that is keeping him tethered to the vampire; it’s his own guilt for putting him through that without his consent. It’s going to be a nightmare, especially for the bloodsucker, because that must be the worst thing, being turned into the thing your species has been sworn to hate. That’s like being half of a species you’re going to war against. Lance knows what it’s like to be half something; when he was first turned, he’d still held onto a lot of his human roots, and hadn’t quite accepted werewolf culture yet. But he’d had his family, and that made it all the more bearable; this vampire, as far as Lance knew, had nobody. Which means that Lance, as his sire and also as just a not heartless person, needs to help him.

That decided, in order to help him, Lance needs to get him comfortable.

“What’s your name?” Lance asks.

“What?” says the vampire. 

“Your name,” Lance says again. “So that if you report me I can hunt you down,” he adds, chuckling, but the vampire doesn’t laugh. Lance admits to himself that jokes about murdering each other probably aren’t a good idea at the moment, especially given their current situation, and backtracks quickly. “I’m joking. Look, vampire, I’m not going to hurt you.” Lance sees the skeptical look the vampire shoots at his almost-healed bite mark on his leg. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Lance insists. “Look, man, I can help you. I was turned with my family years ago! I can totally help you with that.”

The vampire looks at him warily. Lance tries to smile disarmingly, holding his arms out and shifting slightly forward for a hug, but the vampire cringes and shrinks back. Okay, no hugs. But after what feels like an eternity, he says, “Keith.”

☾ ☽

The first thing Lance tries to do once Keith’s vampire genes have finished healing the bite is lead him home. 

“Are you crazy?” Keith demands. “Are all werewolves stupid? I’m still a vampire - you attacked me for a reason. Do you really think your pack will accept me?”

Lance paused, raising a finger, then nodded and brought it back down. “You’re right. Uh, I guess you can stay here?”

Keith raises his eyebrows. “In a cave.”

“Well, you’re a bat, aren’t you?” Lance grins. “I’ll bring you food and stuff.”

“Blood,” Keith says. “You’re going to get me blood without your pack noticing.”

Lance bristles. “I’m trying to help you, you know. You don’t have to shoot down all of my ideas.”

“I’m just trying to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and get the both of us killed,” Keith grumbles. 

“My pack wouldn’t do that,” Lance snaps. 

The vampire huffs. “You literally attacked me the second you saw me.”

“No,” Lance retorts, “they won’t, at least, not anymore. I’m your sire now, remember? That means I’m obligated to protect you, and they’re not going to attack me just to get to you. They don’t care that much, vampire.”

“So the only thing keeping me alive is werewolves’ messed up politics,” Keith says flatly. 

“And me!” Lance adds helpfully. “I’ll keep you alive, don’t worry.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll be very good at that,” Keith sniffs. “You act like the entirety of your brain could be put on a paper airplane.”

“Rude,” Lance whines. “I bet the size of your brain is - whatever. Fine. You don’t want to meet my pack. What do  _ you  _ think we should do, then, huh? Since you’re so smart, apparently.”

Keith frowns. “Well, I can’t stay on your territory. I should go look for somewhere else to stay, where I can hunt for animals to drink from.”

“No, no, no,” Lance objects. “If you go too far away I won’t be able to check on you. For the most part wolves sleep during the day so I can sneak out and make sure you’re alright, but if you go too far away I won’t be back in time and my pack will start looking for me and, by extension, you.”

“I can’t stay here though,” Keith argues. “Didn’t you sense me immediately once I entered your territory?”

“Yeah,” Lance nods, “but only because you smelled weird.”

“Exactly,” Keith says. “I need to leave.”

“Don’t worry,” Lance says. “It’s fine; I can just scent you. It’ll cover the vampire part up and they won’t even notice. Allura isn’t too much of a stickler for traveling werewolves.”

Keith looks rather affronted - probably annoyed that Lance had gone off on him when they allowed other werewolves to cross their land, which, okay, understandable - and seemed almost nervous. “Scenting?” he asked warily.

Oh, yeah. Keith has probably never heard of that before. “I kind of just, like, rub on you,” Lance says. Keith chokes, and Lance quickly backtracks, giggling a little. “Not in that way,” he corrects. “Just my shoulders and wrists against yours. For families we sometimes go for the neck, which makes it a little stronger, but you probably don’t wanna do that.”

Keith shakes his head slowly. “So… you have to touch me?” 

“Just a rub,” Lance says. “I can even just use my wrists. Nobody will know you’re there, I promise.”

Keith still looks wary, but he holds himself stiffly still as Lance comes over and holds out his hand like he’s trying to make a scared dog see him as less threatening. Keith allows Lance to rub a wrist against his shoulders, held bunched up close to his neck, lets him run his hands down his arms and against his wrists. After a minute of the treatment, Keith relaxes a little bit, closing his eyes and letting his shoulders fall from their stiff position.

“You good?” Lance asks, once Keith is coated generously. 

“Yeah,” the vampire says gruffly. “Y’know, I thought you’d smell like a wet dog.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Werewolves all have their own distinct smell,” he says. “They’re kind of hard to describe, but to other weres it’s pleasant. For a were that you trust, it has a calming effect.”

Keith frowns. “I’m not a werewolf yet, though,” he says.

“You will be soon,” Lance says.

Keith looks a little bit like he’s having an existential crisis, but he doesn’t offer up any of his thoughts, and Lance doesn’t want to force him. Instead, he sits Keith down again on the cold floor of the cave, tosses an arm over his shoulder, and ignores when the vampire hisses at him. “Get some sleep, buddy,” Lance tells him. “You’ll need it for when it comes.”

☾ ☽

The wolf appears seven hours in.

It’s pretty fast, if Lance is going to be honest. It can take up to twenty-four hours for the wolf to appear once someone has been bitten, but in Lance’s case and for most of his family, too, it took over fifteen. Even then, it was hard to recognize until his Mama, who had been bitten first, had snarled at one of her pups for hitting another. It might be a vampire thing; Lance is in no way as experienced as Allura had been when she’d turned him, so he’s not sure. 

Lance only notices because Keith becomes visibly upset. They’re still in the cave, though Keith had woken a while ago, and had been pacing restlessly while Lance watched from the back. Time is ticking, and Lance has to go soon in order to get back before his pack begins to think his absence is because something bad happened, but now Keith is panting, his fists clenched at his sides. He’s stopped pacing, and is now standing in the cave, eyes staring unseeingly at the ground. Lance can see sweat dripping down the side of his face.

“You okay?” He’s on his feet in an instant, right beside his offspring, hands out but not touching.

Keith’s hands unclench, but his body remains stiff and jerky, like someone’s stuck an iron rod in his spine. His violet vampire eyes are wide and he flickers them up at Lance.

“Hey, hey,” Lance sooths. “I know it feels weird the first time, but you’ll get used to it, I swear.”

Finally Keith seems to find his voice. “I’m really itchy,” he says quietly. “Am I supposed to be itchy?” He reaches up as if to put his arms around himself, then scratches desperately at his arms, making a small noise of dissent. 

“You’re itchy?” Lance asks. “Um. I wasn’t itchy when I - but it might be different for every werewolf. I don’t know.” Silence.

Suddenly, Keith says, “I want to bite you. Is that normal?” 

“Kinky,” Lance says.

“No,” Keith says, “I want to bite you and then I want to rip you to pieces and then I want to drink your blood off the floor of this cave.”

“Uh,” Lance says, backing away slightly, “maybe let’s… not do that part?” He laughs awkwardly, internally berating himself for all the mistakes he’s made that lead up to this moment.

Keith itches at his throat, and his other hand grabs his bicep and squeezes it hard, the skin going pale from where his fingers are cutting off his bloodstream. Lance winces as his nails dig crescent shapes into the flesh of his arms, and slowly steps closer to Keith. He wraps his own fingers around Keith’s and slowly tries to pry them away. Keith stops itching his neck for a moment to slap his hand away, then reaches up to scratch at his scalp.

Lance looks up at Keith’s face and winces. His already bloodshot vampire eyes seem darker, the pupils larger, and something moving in his mouth catches Lance’s eyes. Under closer inspection, Lance realizes that it’s his fangs.

Lance has never seen vampire fangs up close before.They’re shockingly white and smooth, gently curved like a waxing crescent moon and sharper than the knives that Hunk keeps in the pack’s kitchen. The gums around them are red and swollen, and the fangs themselves seem to glitch, slipping out of Keith’s mouth and then back into it. They’re sort of beautiful in an unnatural and deadly way, like an albino snake waiting to strike at an unsuspecting bird or mouse. Vampires in general are sort of beautiful in an unnatural and deadly way; werewolves tend to be more rugged, more one with the wild and the animal inside of them, but all the vampires Lance has ever seen are cold, marble slabs of people. That might just be because they were threatened by his pack’s presence, though. Keith seems less like a slab of marble and more like a polished bone knife, serrated on one edge but smooth on the other. 

“Are you okay?” Lance asks again, distracting himself from Keith’s mouth and looking up. The vampire has squeezed his eyes shut and his nose is scrunched up. Lance has one fleeting memory of his sisters telling him not to do that because his face would get stuck in that position forever, but he shakes it off and awkwardly bustles around Keith, hands hovering just above his skin, too scared to actually touch him. 

“Oh!” Lance says. “Your fangs are out. Does that mean you’re hungry? I - I can go get you some meat. Or something. There’s gotta be some animals in these woods, eh?” He backs out of the cave, stumbling a little over the uneven ground, and only turns his back on the distressed vampire once he reaches the cave entrance. 

He manages to catch a squirrel pretty easily - there’s an excess of them in his pack’s woods - but when he parades his catch back into the cave, he finds Keith sitting on the ground, his hands pressed over his mouth, small whimpers escaping through his fingers. The squirrel’s body makes a small thud on the cave ground as Lance drops it in his rush to get back to the vampire, stopping just before him and worriedly asking if he’s okay.

“My teeth hurt,” Keith whines. “I want to pull my own fangs out. Why do I want to pull my own fangs out?!” 

“Fuck,” Lance says, a master of words. He quickly takes Keith’s hands in his own trembling ones and flinches at the sight of his lacerated fingers, scratched and decorated with small beads of dried blood from where he’s dragged them along his teeth. “Hey, buddy, let’s not do that, alright?” He turns to look back at the squirrel lying sadly on the ground and then asks Keith, “Will eating something help? Maybe you’re hangry.”

Eating doesn’t help. Lance isn’t quite sure what he was thinking. Instead, Keith seems unsure of himself. He sinks his fangs into the squirrel, and then jerks his head back, almost as if he’s trying to rip the meat off the bones, and then opens and closes his mouth awkwardly. Lance stares blankly as his jaw shifts around, the piece of squirrel looking too big for his mouth. 

Keith looks upset. He turns to the side and spits the chunk of squirrel onto the ground, his hands still clutched between Lance’s. 

“Was it not good?” Lance asks gently. “Do vampires not like squirrels or something?”

Keith stares at the ground bashfully. Lance notices that his cheeks are starting to go a little pink, which seems oddly… werewolf-like, almost. It’s more vulnerable than any vampire Lance has ever seen before. Distracted by his thoughts, Lance doesn’t hear what Keith mumbles.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s been so long I’ve forgotten how to chew,” Keith says, still under his breath and quite quickly, shuffling his feet on the ground. “We - er, vampires… don’t need to. Ever.”

Lance’s jaw drops. It’s an understandable reaction, really! Meat - all types of it - is a crucial part in a werewolf’s diet, and it honestly never occurred to him that a vampire’s food would stop them from enjoying anything else, like sweets or fruit or fresh kill. Keith looks more and more uncomfortable as Lance stares in shock, and his embarrassed face is finally what snaps Lance out of his stupor. “Can’t you just drink then?” he suggests.

“It won’t let me,” Keith says, looking miserable. He glares down at the squirrel.

“What?” Lance says stupidly.

“The  _ thing _ ,” Keith hisses. “That thing that appeared. Inside of me.”

“The wolf,” Lance says.

Keith looks surprised. “Is that what it feels like? I thought it would…”

“Feel more separate?” Lance guesses. He leads Keith by his hands over to the other side of the cave and sits down heavily, letting out a short puff of breath. “Yeah. Me too.

“Before I was turned, I always heard the rumors of the wolf being… different from the person, y’know? Like a separate entity that they could interact with inside of their head. Like a friend. A bro. Someone who was inside my head and knew me, and might sometimes have different opinions, but would still support me.

“But the wolf is still you. It’s not some separate entity. It’s you, just with different urges, ones that you might have never had before. I,” here Lance winces, “the wolf side of me is a lot more violent than the human side. It’s… probably why I ended up biting you. The bite kind of blurs the line between you and a different you.”

“It’s different for vampires,” Keith says. “We’re still ourselves. We just crave blood instead of solid food and get burned when we come into contact with sunlight.”

“Werewolves are still themselves, technically,” Lance argues. “It’s not like I’ve completely changed. It’s just that there’s a part of me that… wants to hurt people.” He sighs. “I struggled a lot with it when I was first bitten, actually. I was never a… a violent person. I didn’t want to  _ hurt  _ people, not on purpose. The wolf in me, well, it definitely did, sometimes. And it messed with my head a little.” Lance glances at Keith, who is watching him with those big, dark eyes, reflecting Lance’s own blue ones back at himself. He looks concerned, but Lance can’t tell whether it’s for himself or for the werewolf. “Allura - my sire - she told me it’s all about finding a balance. A sort of mental state that works for both you and that other part of you, the part that is vulnerable to those new instincts. 

“I had to separate myself from it, actually,” Lance admits. “I was really susceptible to my wolf in the beginning. I’d be too brutal, to the point where I could become savage, even to my packmates. I kept fighting it, didn’t trust it, and that would make the wolf take over instead of working with me, which would then cause more violence and more distrust towards it. It was a vicious cycle. I couldn’t identify with this - this part of myself that wanted to harm others. It wasn’t  _ me _ . But it also was - and it messed with my head. I didn’t feel like myself. 

“So I separated it. I started to think of it as a different organism inside of me, not as myself. It wasn’t  _ me  _ who wanted to hurt others, it was the wolf. And so I began to trust myself again. Started being able to interact with people without trying to bite their heads off. Not that I’ve ever done that,” he adds with a dry chuckle. “But once the wolf was no longer changing me, I was able to… negotiate with it, almost. I could give it some leeway instead of making it take all of my decisions from me, and I wasn’t at its mercy as much anymore. I still could be - still am, sometimes, if I’m honest - but I could live with it. Could live with myself.”

Keith is staring down at his palms. At some point in the story, Lance had dropped his hands in order to wave them around as he spoke, and Keith had returned them to his lap. “I’m a vampire, though,” he states. “There’s no… hating werewolves is a part of me.”

“Helping people is a part of me,” Lance offers. “Hurting them is, too, though. I know this is going to be hard, but you have to accept it. This is part of yourself you can’t change, and you need to find a balance, a way in which you can live and your brain isn’t constantly fighting itself. Pulling out your fangs is your werewolf’s way of telling you it hates the vampire part of you, and I assume that the closer we get to the full moon the stronger it will be. You can’t overpower the wolf with sheer willpower. You have to barter with it, give a little bit of yourself to it, in order to keep control of the rest of you. Like - like, um, how kings would give some power to their subjects in order to keep them happy but really hoard the rest of their power to themselves. Constitutional monarchs, or whatever. 

“I know the vampire part of you hates wolves. But you need to find a way to balance between the two, or they’ll just constantly fight each other, until you become someone else entirely. When I was at the peak of my conflict, I almost went rogue. I couldn’t face any wolf without them reminding me of what I was, and I couldn’t see any human without being reminded of who I used to be. I couldn’t control myself. It’s all about balance, or whatever. Don’t tip over too far, Keith. When you’re a werewolf - or a vampire - it’s not inconsequential.”

☾ ☽

It never even occurs to Lance that Keith’s coven might begin to look for him until they do.

It’s about a week after Keith was bit, and Lance thinks it’s kind of sad that Keith had to be missing for a week before his fellow vampires started to worry about him, but he doesn’t say that to Keith’s face. Between visiting him during the day and sometimes at night, they’ve put together a relatively stable friendship, one that’s good enough for a sire and his offspring, and Lance would rather not return to their beginnings. Fighting with a vampire, especially one as stubborn as Keith Kogane, is tiring and not worth it. Lance has never been so exhausted. 

Lance is coming back to visit Keith in his cave when he smells the vampires. Their scents are far enough away that they aren’t intruding on his pack’s territory (thank god, because Lance might have to explain to his pack about Keith if they found out about the vampires), but their scents still make Lance’s hackles raise and tense his shoulders unconsciously. 

(It only occurs to him later that he hasn’t had that reaction to Keith’s vampire-werewolf-hybrid scent in a few days, but he blames it on his own thorough scenting)

Keith seems to have noticed them, too. He’s sitting at the entrance of the cave when Lance gets there, just out of reach of the patch of sunlight that filters through the trees and past the jagged lip of the cave. When Lance appears, he stands and grabs at the werewolf’s hands once he enters the shadows.

“Can you sense them, too?” he asks, and Lance nods. “Are they looking for me?”

“I dunno,” Lance says apologetically. “They’re not on pack territory.”

“That’s my brother,” Keith says. “Well, not in blood, but he was turned at the same time as me. We’ve stuck together since we drank.” 

“Are they going to turn on my pack?” Lance asks warily.

Keith shakes his head. “Shiro’s pretty level-headed. He won’t start something if he doesn’t have to. And his husbands are good at reeling him back in, if he does try to act rashly.”

“That’s good,” Lance says slowly. He eyes Keith, who is still standing as close to the edge of the cave as he can. “Hey, are you alright with this?”

“Well,” Keith says wryly, “it’s not like I can do much about it anyway.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, “but still.”

Keith shrugs. He steps away from the patch of sunlight and lets go of Lance’s hands, sticking his own into his pockets and retreating back into the depths of the cave. “I wouldn’t want them to see me like this anyway.”

Lance winces. “I’m sorry,” he says, probably for the hundredth time since he bit Keith. The vampire waves a hand over his shoulder and kicks a stone into the back of the cave, watching idly as it bounces off, small chips flying in different directions. Vampire strength, Lance notes.

They stand in silence for a while, Lance in the entrance of the cave, framed in sunlight, Keith hunched in the back, encased in darkness. His dark hair makes his head blend into the background, and when he turns, his eyes seem to almost float in the murkiness, reflecting the light from the outside. Lance is reminded of a feral cat.

“It’s just,” Keith finally breaks. He kicks the rock back at the wall again, huffing. “Do you know what my first instinct was when I smelled them?”

Lance says nothing. It sounds like a rhetorical question, but Keith continues to stare expectantly, so Lance offers, “Um… no?”

“I wanted to attack them,” Keith says. “I almost did. I almost leaped right out of this cave, into the goddamn sunlight, and attacked the vampires that I’ve lived with for all my undead life.”

Lance opens his mouth, but closes it after a second thought. 

“My brother!” Keith continues. “I wanted to attack my own brother. My brother-in-laws. My coven. The vampire who turned me.” He laughs darkly. “Are all werewolves always this violent?”

“Depends on the wolf,” Lance says. “But we tend to react that way to vampires. I’m… sorry about that.”

Keith snorts. “Well, if this is how you felt when you sensed me, I guess I can’t really blame you.” He crosses his arms. “But,” and here is what Lance remembers from that first night: a hint of vulnerability peeking through, somehow escaping from the tenseness of the vampire’s shoulders and the strength he omits, giving Lance a glimpse of what might be hiding under all that bravado. “Is it always going to be like this?” 

“The wolf gets stronger the closer you get to the full moon,” is the only thing that Lance can offer. “So the days right after, it’ll be pretty much in the back of your mind, but the closer we get, the stronger it will be.”

“So I’m always going to hate vampires,” Keith says flatly.

“I’m sorry,” Lance says again.

“I was turned over a hundred years ago,” Keith says. “Me, Shiro, Adam, Curtis - we were all turned at the same time. I can’t even remember why anymore - all I remember is the taste of our maker’s blood as it poured down my throat.” He chuckles. “Vampires have a much more sophisticated version of turning than you werewolves, you know. They have to drink our blood, a lot of it, not just get some measly accidental bite. But it tastes like shit. And it burns your insides, like it’s using holy fire to blast away all of your humanity. Except, y’know, you’re becoming a vampire, so it’s not very holy at all.”

“Becoming a werewolf isn’t painless either,” Lance argues. “I mean, our goddamn bones break and reshape themselves every month. It’s not all fun and games. At least vampires only go through it once.”

“Whenever you’re hungry,” Keith says, “blood becomes the only thing you can think about. It’s like a fucking haze, like you’re addicted to a drug - at least, I assume; vampires aren’t affected by that stuff - and it’s all you can focus on. And everything hurts if you don’t. After a while, if you don’t drink, you kind of - go into this mindspace, and you just… go after everything.”

“Kind of like werewolves,” Lance says softly.

Keith huffs. “Yeah, I guess. Vampires are peaceful, though. At least for the most part. You werewolves? It’s like you’re itching for a fight.”

“It’s our biology,” Lance says. “Same as yours. Not my fault.”

“It’s dumb biology,” Keith says. He straightens, shifting his shoulders, seemingly trying to act like whatever he was saying before isn’t affecting him. “What are you going to eat if you go on a murder spree and destroy your entire territory?”

Lance rolls his eyes. He’ll go along with this, he guesses. “Well, we don’t  _ do _ that. We do have some organization, buddy, whatever you vampires might think. We’re not that stupid.”

“Well if you go into an angry rage every time you smell a vampire, isn’t that kind of detrimental to your health too? You’d want to attack every one, and you’d end up dying,” Keith points out.

“Dude,” Lance says. “You gotta stop asking me these questions. I have no freaking clue. Biology is crazy! This is why I went into astrophysics for college.”

“Do you not know the origins of your species?” Keith asks 

“I do! It’s just - a nursery story. I tell it to my little cousins in the morning before they go to sleep,” Lance objects. “Besides, I doubt that  _ you _ know the vampires’ origins either.”

Keith bristles. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t care until fifty years ago when I got bored one day, but at least I know it.”

“I  _ told  _ you, I do know it. In fact, I’ll tell it to you. Right now. Strap in, tusks, and get ready for a tale!” Lance puffs out his chest and grins, secretly happy to get out of that awkward serious moment. Lance likes comforting people, but after a certain point, he doesn’t know what to say anymore. Now, Keith looks adorably annoyed and confused (Lance sees him mouth “Tusks?” to himself) instead of upset, so Lance hops around the cave, cracking his back and getting ready to do a dramatic retelling.  _ This  _ is why he’s the favorite Uncle (along with, y’know, the extra treats he sneaks his sibling’s kids right before he sends them back to their parents because, well, Lance sometimes likes to instigate chaos).

“Long, long ago,” Lance starts, beaming at the vampire.

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’m not a child, Lance. You don’t have to baby me.”

“Ah ah ah!” Lance laughs. “Technically, you’re a younger werewolf than me, so shhhhhh.” He clears his throat again, running a hand through his hair dramatically and grinning as Keith snorts and crosses his arms, leaning back against the wall, but looking looser than Lance has seen him all day. 

“So, long long ago,” Lance begins again, “there was a boy.”

“A boy,” Keith says flatly.

“Shut up.” Lance waves a hand in the vampire’s direction, grinning. “There was a wolf, too! A wolf, a long, long time ago.”

“Wolves have been around for a very long time,” Keith nods.

“Oh my god,” Lance says, laughing now. “Shut up and let me tell my story.

“There was this boy, right? He was kind of sad, and lonely, and he worked in this garden at night, because he grew actinitine flowers, and his species grew better when the moon was shining. The moon tried to invite him into their kingdom, but the boy always worked, and then would go to bed. The moon wanted a way to keep him outside all night so that they could annex him, so they had the wolf go into his house to scare him out.” Lance pauses. “I’m just realizing how stalker-y this story is now. Um, anyway.

“The wolf and the boy became friends, though, and the moon became angry, because wolves were supposed to be under their domain, and he had disobeyed them. So they decided to punish them both. 

“‘You’re so close?’ the moon thought. ‘Well, I’m sure you could get even closer.’ And so they turned the boy and the wolf into one person, and cursed them to force other people to join in their suffering.”

“This is stupid,” Keith says. “Like, the moon isn’t a person. Do you wolves worship the moon? I don’t think I’d be able to do that.”

“Keith, tusks, my dude, my buddy,” Lance sighs. “It’s a children’s story. It’s supposed to help pups fall asleep at night.”

“Fall asleep thinking that their own biology is a curse set upon them by some fucked up goddess?” Keith asks. “Real comforting.”

Lance grimaces, “Well…”

“I mean,” Keith says, “I guess it is kind of a curse.”

Lance walks over to him, his jokester exterior stripped away, and squats in front of the vampire, sighing slowly through his nose. “Keith,” he says, concerned.

“When vampirism was first made public, people thought it was a disease,” Keith tells him. “Lycanthropy being a curse doesn’t seem too far off.”

“Keith,” Lance tries again.

“I’m sorry,” the vampire says. “I just don’t see how anyone could see being a werewolf as anything but a curse.”

“Keith,” Lance says softly. “Look, I get you, man. It sucks. A lot. I hated it a lot when I was first bitten, and I still sometimes hate it now, and I’m so, so sorry about all of this, but.”

“It’s so stupid, though,” Keith says. He laughs, but it’s full of tension and hurt and despair, and Lance doubts that it’s anything close to what his actual laugh might sound like. “What’s the evolutionary purpose of turning into a wolf every month? And you said it’s painful, so painful. You said that your bones break and rearrange themselves and that your muscles rip into pieces and then thread themselves back together using veins as string and cartilage as needles. You’re vulnerable after a full moon - that’s what vampires were always taught. ‘Attack them the day after the full moon,’ they told me. 

“Lance - I’ve been a vampire for so long! More than quadruple the time that I wasn’t. It’s part of my identity: I’m a vampire, I’m gay as fuck, I have a brother and two brother in laws and a coven for a family and I  _ love _ them; that’s who I am. Vampirism makes you hungry, but it doesn’t change your entire personality! 

“My brother has been the most important person in my life for  _ a literal century.  _ I’d follow Shiro anywhere; I followed him when I was a young orphan and he took me in, I followed him into a vampire’s lair, and I followed him into fucking hell - well, my maker’s house, but still - to become a demon with him! I’m still a vampire - I’m still  _ Keith _ , but there’s this - this -  _ invader _ , in my head. I don’t just smell the blood of my enemies now; I smell their flesh, too, and my first response is to bite them and not even drink; just rip! And I don’t - it’s different, Lance. Neither vampires or werewolves like change.”

“It sucks,” Lance says, “I know. I told you before; I struggled a lot with it, too. Still do. I felt kind of the same way you did; my family, my pack - I can’t control myself around them sometimes. Even now, after being a werewolf for a while. I can promise you that it will get better, but Keith, you  _ have  _ to find a balance with the wolf. If you fight it, it’s not going to work. I know that for a fact. I know that being a vampire makes you hate werewolves - makes you hate yourself, but you have to accept that part of you.

“The wolf is a wild creature, or whatever. If it thinks you’re trying to get rid of it, trying to suppress it and shove it down and obliterate it, it’ll freak out and retaliate. It’ll stop taking you into account, and start running on instinct, will push you away from the wheel and take over in your steed. Even if you’re a vampire, you can’t defeat the wolf in your head. You need to make a business deal with it. It’s different for everyone, but fighting it isn’t going to work.”

“I’ve been trying to hide it,” Keith says.

“Hide it?” Lance asks. 

“How much it hates vampire me. I told you that first day I wanted to pull my own fangs out, right? It’s like - like it wants to get rid of every part of me that’s a vampire. My gums are constantly swollen, like my own body is trying to nip them at the bud and get them to fall out. My fangs, my eyes, my desire for blood - but the vampire part of me hates the wolf. I almost chased a squirrel into the woods yesterday, like a goddamn dog, and my fangs nearly stabbed me in the tongue. I saw some hair on my arm and almost freaked out last night.”

“ _ Keith _ ,” Lance cries. “You can’t hide stuff from me! I can’t help you if you hide it.”

“Not like you could do much,” Keith points out. “You can’t, like, jump in my head and tell the wolf to fuck off or something.”

“Yeah, but.” Lance frowns, because Keith is right. There really isn’t anything that Lance could do to comfort Keith, to stop the wolf and the vampire from duking it out in his head, except being a distraction. “I’m going to start visiting more. You shouldn’t be alone with your thoughts.”

“I’m fine,” Keith says.

“Nope!” Lance says. “I’ll start coming more often. And hey,” he says, softening his tone and peering through his lashes at the tired-looking vampire (even though Lance is pretty sure vampires don’t sleep. Actually, no, the tiredness makes sense then; sometimes Lance sleeps for a good twelve hours and is still exhausted. He can’t imagine not sleeping for a hundred years). “You can tell me anything that goes on with the werewolf, okay? I won’t judge. I understand how hard it is. And I’ll do my best to help you, alright?” And then, after a moment's thought, he flings himself at the vampire for a hug. It’s returned, albeit stiffly, and Lance calls that a success, even if he really doesn’t know how to help Keith at all. 

☾ ☽

Lance makes good on his word. He comes the next day, and stays later than ever, and then the night after that, having given his pack the excuse that he wanted to do some lone hunting. Instead, he sprints over to Keith’s cave.

The vampire is reading a book that Lance brought him the day before, one he’d snuck from the library about werewolves and their behavior. Lance had peaked inside and thought it looked more like a YA novel than an actual informational handbook, but he’d brought it to Keith anyways, not knowing what else to give him. 

Lance rushes into the cave, practically tackling Keith in a hug. The disgruntled vampire shoves him off, but Lance doesn’t go flying, so Keith must not be too mad. Undeterred, Lance pushes himself back to his feet and beams down at the vampire. 

“There’s this cool field in my territory,” Lance tells him. “We’re going on a field trip, tusks!”

“I’m not a baby,” Keith complains. He’s already given up on trying to get Lance to drop the nickname.

“You’re technically a pup,” Lance retorts gleefully. “You’re younger than my nieces! Little itty-bitty wolf Keith!” Lance makes to grab at his cheeks like a doting grandmother might do to her grandkids, but Keith yelps and jerks back, practically tripping over himself to get away. 

“I hate you,” Keith says. 

Lance chooses to ignore this. “Get up!” he tells the vampire. “You’ll love this. I think. Anyway, we’re going, so chop chop!” He claps his hands. 

Keith grins. “Yeah, yeah,” he tells Lance. 

Dropping the mood for a moment, Lance leans in and tells the vampire, “Hey, tonight we’re gunna have fun, alright? Just try not to worry for a little bit. Maybe if you relax, try to get comfortable, the wolf will also calm down in there.” He taps Keith’s temple with a soft smile. “You’ll love this.”

“Okay,” Keith says.

Lance grabs the vampire’s wrist. A small part of him jolts at it, the feel of cold skin burning into his hand, the wolf rejecting the idea of being close to a vampire, but the rest of his brain smothers it like pouring sand over soot. 

The forest is always more beautiful at night. That might just be the werewolf part of Lance being biased, but the way the moon filters through the leaves and leaves scattered silver patches on the group like shed scales from past mythical creatures makes him feel oddly nostalgic. The cold air tickles the hairs on the back of his neck, swooshing around like drafty ghosts.

Keith trots along beside him, violet eyes taking in the scenic views and the way the tree trunks seem to loom up out of the ground like fallen spears. The earth is spongy under their feet and absorbs the blows from the bottoms of their shoes easily, the moss giving way and then bouncing back up after the weight is lifted. He looks less like a vampire now, holds himself less straight and proper. His head is tilted towards the right like a curious dog, and every now and then he sniffs the air loudly. 

“My best friend found this place,” Lance tells Keith. “It has nice herbs, or something. I don’t know; I wasn’t really paying attention. It’s cool, though. Right now, these flowers are in bloom. I think you’ll like them. Wolves have a natural affection for them.”

“I think I’ve heard of that,” Keith agrees. “My maker had a little rhyme that went like, ‘Just plant some actinine flowers, and wolves’ll come running within the hour.’”

Lance laughs. “Yeah. That’s why they’re featured in that story I told you. It’s kind of like the wolf version of catnip. Wolfsbane, some people call it. Try not to let your instincts go wild. The first time Hunk took me here, I rolled around in the flowers for an hour and then instantly passed out.”

Keith laughs. “I’ll try,” he teases.

Lance drops Keith’s wrist but grabs his hand, speeding up, taking advantage of his long legs to tow the vampire along with him. They speed through the forest, using all of their combined werewolf and vampire speed to make the trees look like blurs, the wind rushing in their ears, tussling their hair. Half of Keith’s hair flows behind him and the other half is stuck in his face like a soft curtain, and every now and again he reaches up to shove it out of the way with a snort. Lance almost trips on a root or a rock. He has to turn around and actually look where he is going instead of staring at the vampire beside him.

The field is just as serene as Lance remembers it to be. It’s a small sprawl of gentle hills, just languid slopes to the side of what can be a hilly forest. This time of year, the flowers are in full bloom, purple petals that grow in towers and remind Lance of Keith’s eyes. The moon hangs high in the sky with its posse of stars, wispy clouds curling in spirals across the deep blue background. Lance thinks he sees a bat fly across, probably following an insect, but he isn’t quite sure. 

“It’s nice,” Keith agrees. 

Lance tugs him into the flowers, grinning as their bodies part them like the Red Sea. He plucks a particularly violet stem and hands it to Keith, beaming at him. 

The vampire seems a little mystified by the field. He peers around, trailing calloused fingers over the blooms and leaves, mouth slightly ajar. “Is this natural?” he asks Lance.

“I dunno,” Lance says easily. “It’s been here for a while, as far as I know, but there were other werewolf packs here before us, so they might have planted it. I can’t really imagine any other way a whole field would become full of only actinine flowers. They don’t grow super easily.”

“Huh,” is all Keith responds. 

“Here,” Lance says. He takes back the flowers that he’d given to Keith, who looks a little disgruntled to be parted with his gift, and then tucks it behind his ear, smiling. He was right; it is quite similar to Keith’s eyes, though the vampire outshines the beauty of the flower easily. “Do you feel any different?” Lance asks, gesturing to the flowers.

“Not really,” Keith says. “Maybe a little more calm.”

“That’s good,” Lance says. 

Keith smiles at him, and Lance almost chokes on his breath.

Because Keith looks beautiful right now. Lance can’t believe he’s saying that - about a vampire, no less, but that doesn’t make it any less true. His dark hair looks soft and inviting in the moonlight, glimmering like a thousand stars reflected in a pool of icy black water, large violet eyes speckled like two galaxies. His lips are partly open, and Lance can see glimpses of his fangs there, like white jewels sewn into his mouth. Lance wonders how hard it would be to avoid being cut on them if he were to stick his tongue there.

Lance needs to distract himself. Keith is a vampire; a werewolf, too, but that doesn’t mean his other instincts are all drowned out. A werewolf that Lance turned, no less. Keith probably hates him. He’s probably just pandering him until he learns how to survive and then he’ll abandon Lance for some pack that didn’t fuck up his entire life. Or maybe even go back to the vampires; Lance has no clue, but he can’t imagine being bit when he didn’t ask for it. Lance knows that Keith has been struggling with it, even more than new recruits, which is understandable; they had asked to be turned, had prepared, had Allura talk to them and give them the rundown on the procedure, and also aren’t vampires, creatures that are conditioned to hate werewolves. It’ll never work out.

He can’t let these thoughts thrive. It just isn’t proper, and Lance hates getting his own hopes up for things that he cannot possibly achieve. He needs to distract himself. He needs to bite these feelings at the bud and stop them from ever appearing. He needs to do something to get these thoughts out of his head and away from his conscience - 

“I think you should try turning soon,” Lance says.

☾ ☽

Lance comes back at night again a few weeks later. This time, Keith is wide awake, looking worried. There are lines on his forehead that Lance desperately wants to rub away, but he satisfies himself with a quick hug once the vampire stands. Keith chews at his lips, already swollen, which really isn’t helping Lance’s case but he chooses to ignore it. 

“I don’t know about this,” Keith says. His brows are furrowed and it’s kind of adorable, but Lance ignores this, too. 

“I think this will be good for you,” Lance tells him. “Shifting now will get you familiar with the wolf for when the full moon comes and you’re forced to interact with it. And if it goes well then the full moon will be a hell of a lot easier.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to give the wolf any more power when the vampire is still going strong,” Keith argues.

“The vampire isn’t going to go away,” Lance points out. “It’s better to test it now, when the wolf isn’t at its strongest, than on the full moon. Things get… messy the night of the full moon. Blurry, kind of. I don’t know how to describe it - you kind of have to be part of the club to really understand, if you get what I’m saying - but I think it’ll make things worse.”

“Oh, that’s a given,” Keith says. “The full moon is going to make everything worse. I just don’t see why I should suffer that fate now.”

“It’s like slowly integrating yourself into something before you jump all the way in,” Lance persuades. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. At any moment, you can turn back and give up. Promise.”

“...Okay,” Keith says. “I trust you.” He frowns. “But if this goes terribly wrong I get to say I told you so.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says. 

They choose the cave to practice in first. Lance tries to walk Keith through the steps of shifting; opening yourself up to the wolf side, pushing through the pain to keep going. But the more they do, the more distressed Keith seems to get. Lance can’t tell if it’s because of the pain or if it’s something else, but he truly does think that shifting will help Keith at least be somewhat more prepared for the real deal, so he holds his tongue and watches worriedly.

When Keith finally shifts, he freaks.

Lance hadn’t prepared for this at all. Keith had always seemed so calm and collected; he couldn’t imagine Keith cowering, let alone running away. If anything, Lance had thought that Keith would respond to shifting violently, going after the wildlife stationed in the trees beside his cave. 

Lance is too distracted by Keith’s wolf form to react quickly. He’s the same species as Lance and his family (and, by extension, Allura) because Lance is his sire, but he’s got more back and red scattered throughout his coat than Lance does. While Lance is all greys and silvers, Keith has a mostly dark coat with reddish streaks before everything fades out to cream on his legs. 

But then Keith almost yelps, and it startles Lance out of his thoughts. Once his bones have stopped cracking and his muscles have finished knitting themselves back together again, he’s on his feet with a small cry and is darting out of the cave, fur puffed out to make himself look larger and a tortured whimper escaping from his muzzle. Lance sees him pause in the relative safety of a bush, reaching up with his hind legs to frantically scratch at his own fur, dragging his rough paws through the coarse pelt as if trying to tear it off. He then uses his front legs to go after his own muzzle, opening his jaws wide and whining as he paws at his teeth.

_ Oh _ .

Shit, Lance may have been wrong about this idea.

“Don’t do that!” he yells, throwing himself out of the cave after the wolf.

Keith spooks, tail flashing between his legs and he darts a few meters away, staring at Lance with wary yellow eyes. His paws shuffle on the ground as if unhappy with their shape. Lance can imagine how he’s feeling; alone and lost in this foreign body, handing part of the reigns over to his wolf, but the wolf focusing on the biggest threat (in its eyes): Keith himself. Even Lance, who the wolf seems so nervous around, seems to not cause as much worry as the vampire inside of the wolf, as it stops again to scratch at his back with a hind leg. Keith twists around, almost as if he’s trying to get a hold on his tail, which Lance knows he  _ absolutely  _ cannot let happen. 

“Don’t do that!” he yells again, and the wolf whips its head back towards Lance.

This is really not the right time, but Lance notices long fangs still in the wolf’s mouth. They look similar to Keith’s usual fangs, sticking out obscenely compared to the rest of the normal canines, gleaming with spit and moonlight. The gums right around them look too red, almost sickly, and the tongue of the wolf is slightly swollen from scraping against them. If anything, they look bigger in the wolf’s mouth, though that might just be because they’re more open in a muzzle than a human mouth.

“Keith,” Lance says softly, holding out an arm to the wolf. 

He eyes the appendage suspiciously, pulling back slowly and walking backwards, not letting Lance out of his sight. There’s a crack of a branch in the forest behind them, and Keith spooks, flinching back and snarling low in his throat. He turns and plunges into the brush behind. 

“Fuck!” Lance yells in frustration. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, pushing down the worry and the guilt to examine later, and also that unspoken part of him, and then rushes after the wolf. He debates shifting, but in the end decides not to unless it gets really bad, scared of spooking Keith even more. A vampire seeing a werewolf running after him? It would definitely trigger some instincts and not the good ones. 

Keith doesn’t seem to be running in any particular direction. His tracks swerve through the forest, going one way and then the other, over logs and rocks and muddy puddles. Lance sprints after him, panting, because his legs are long but wolves are much faster and, even with his werewolf-given abilities, Lance doesn’t have the same amount of endurance. 

But Keith seems to be slowing down.

It’s probably due to the fact that he’s running farther into pack territory. The smell of Lance’s packmates is getting stronger the closer that they get to their homes, permeating the air with a smell that feels like  _ friends  _ and  _ safety  _ to Lance but probably  _ enemy  _ and  _ danger  _ to Keith. 

He’s conveniently headed right towards one of the pack’s main pathways, one of the few that leads in and out of their territory, so it’s heavily scented and layered with warnings to stay off. There are chips in the bark of the tree along the path with the symbol of Lance’s pack, and scuff marks on the dirt from where the werewolves have dug in their paws. 

It’s a warning for outsiders. 

Which includes Keith, even if Lance really doesn’t consider him one anymore. Lance follows his tracks, veering to the side once the heavy scent of the path is sensible and going alongside as though looking for a breech. He finds the wolf cowering on one side of the path, tail swishing agitatedly against his feet, ears pricked to listen for danger and nose scouring the air, a vaguely sour look on his face, as though someone had made him eat lemon slices.

“Keith,” Lance says.

The wolf bares his teeth. A low growl sprouts in his throat, making Lance frown.

“C’mon, Keith,” Lance tries again. He peers at the wolf. Parts of his fur are ruffled and scrunched up, like he’d continued to fuss with it after he’d run, and his ears keep twitching like he’s remembering that they’re there over and over again. “Keith?” Lance asks the wolf. 

The wolf tilts his head at Lance. Okay, he can work with that. There’s obviously still a small part of Keith still in there, somewhere, buried deep down under layers of instincts. 

“Keith,” Lance says. “Keith, it’s me, Lance. Remember? It’s your sire.” The wolf’s tail starts twitching agitatedly, and he remains stiff, muscles tense, as if about to run away again. “Keith, you have to make a deal with the wolf, remember? You can’t keep trying to over power it. You have to share.”

The wolf whines. He shifts on his feet, taking a few steps towards Lance, but still shifting awkwardly. 

“Just remain calm,” Lance instructs. He has no idea if anything that he’s saying is helping, but the wolf isn’t attacking him or running away, so Lance figures it has to be doing something. “You can control yourself if you really concentrate.”

Keith’s shoulders sag. He lets out a low, mournful howl, plopping down in the dirt and covering parts of his face with his front paws in an oddly human display. When Lance approaches, he turns his nose towards the werewolf, letting out little snuffles. 

“Hey, shhh,” Lance comforts. He kneels down to place a hand on Keith’s fluffy neck and rubs slowly. The vampire lifts his head, turning his wet nose towards Lance’s hand and presses the cold appendage to Lance’s wrist. He whimpers.

“C’mon, buddy,” Lance says. “Shh. I’m sorry for making you do this, sweetheart. Can you transform back for me?” He gestures at the wolf’s body. “I can’t carry you.”

Keith whines again and cuddles closer to Lance, laying part of his body on his feet and pressing his spine into Lance’s shins. Lance glances at the road and sees a squirrel skittering across the worn path, reminding him that his packmates could come this way any time.

“You gotta transform for me,” Lance says. “It’ll make the wolf weaker, too. I’m sorry but, uh, I can’t carry you like this. You’re as tall as my shoulders, and way heavier.”

The wolf’s eyes close, scrunching up, and then Lance hears the tell-tale sounds of bones beginning to crack and reshape, fur either shedding or being absorbed back into skin, and Keith’s pants and groans make Lance wince with guilt. Finally, after a few more tortured whimpers, it’s Keith at Lance’s feet, the vampire version of Keith with his dark hair and pale skin, curled up on his side. 

“I’m going to pick you up,” Lance warns the vampire. He wraps Keith up in his arms and begins to head back to where they were, praying that his pack won’t notice his odd tracks or the sounds of another werewolf on their territory. 

Keith seems tuckered out. He winces if Lance jostles him too much, and hides his face, huffing slightly as Lance travels as fast as possible over the uneven forest ground. “I’m sorry about making you do this,” Lance tells him.

“It’s fine,” Keith mumbles.

“I honestly thought it would help,” Lance says quickly. “Like, I don’t know, dipping your foot in the pool before you jump all the way in, or something. I don’t really know what I was thinking. I didn’t think you were going to react like that, or I never would have suggested it, I swear.”

“I know,” Keith says. 

“I won’t make you do that again,” Lance says. “If you think something’s a bad idea, I swear I’ll listen to you. One hundred percent. You’re the boss.”

“Shut up,” Keith says drowsily. He twists in Lance’s arms and watches the ground rush past them. “Put me down.”

“It’ll be faster this way,” Lance objects.

“Didn’t you just say you’d listen to me?” Keith asks.

Lance puts him down. 

They walk together to the cave. Keith leads the way once he recognizes where they are in the territory, and manages to walk quickly, considering how tired he’d seemed just a few minutes before.

“I really am sorry,” Lance repeats as they walk. “I’m serious, Keith. I - I don’t know. I knew beforehand that the wolf was bothering you, and I suggested something that would make it even stronger and more aggressive. That’s completely on me. I am so, so -”

“Oh my god, Lance,” Keith groans. He turns around and stops, and Lance almost crashes into him. The vampire grabs his shoulders and holds him there, eyes staring into each other’s. Lance swallows. “Stop apologizing. First you won’t shut up about biting me, and now you won’t shut up about this? It’s  _ fine _ . I’ve told you that before. Maybe before I was bit I wouldn’t have, but I understand now that it’s hard to control the wolf, and you have a family to protect. I get you. I would do anything for my brother. And nothing terrible happened tonight, alright? Maybe it will help during the whole moon; I have no freaking clue. Just, stop freaking out so much? It’s fine. I don’t blame you. In fact, we even learned that my wolf likes you, and that your scent calms me down! Just call it a success and be done with it.” He peers at Lance. “Stop pitying me.”

“He does?” Lance asks, mouth gaping wide enough to swallow a deer whole.

Keith sighs and rolls his eyes. He turns back around and snorts, waving a hand. “So we’re cool?”

“We’re cool?” Lance echos, and then brightens. He grins and rushes forward to catch Keith, tossing an arm over his shoulders and pulling the vampire towards him. “Aww, so you trust me! And see me as a packmate? Tusks, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“They’re not tusks! They’re just fangs!” Keith side eyes him. “I’ll bite you,” he warns.

Lance shrugs. “It’ll be payback.”

Keith groans. “I told you that I’m over that.”

“I know, I know,” Lance says. “I’ll just say it one last time: I’m sorry. But I was joking about the payback. I mean, unless you really want to bite me.” He winks at Keith over-exaggeratedly. 

“I’ll still bite you,” Keith cautions. 

“No you won’t,” Lance says. “You like me!” And then he registers what Keith said. “Wait - you  _ like  _ me?”

“My wolf does,” Keith says, glancing away. Lance sees an incriminating amount of pink grace Keith’s cheeks and beams, pouncing on it.

“Aww, you’re blushing!” he crows. “I didn’t even know that vampires could still do that! That’s  _ adorable _ , tusks.”

Keith glares at the ground. “Stop it, oh my god. You’re making me sound like a middle school girl. I’ve been around for over a hundred years.”

“No, no, no,” Lance says, and then thinks,  _ Fuck it.  _ “I like it. I like  _ you _ , Keith. So stop being embarrassed and hug me back, goddamnit.” He tugs the vampire a little closer. “And let me take you out after the full moon.”

“Take me where?” Keith raises his eyebrows. “There’s nothing to see in this forest.”

“Uh, didn’t I just take you to an amazing field of flowers a few nights ago?” Lance asks. 

“Let’s just focus on the full moon,” Keith says. “You’re going to be there, right?”

“Of course,” Lance says. “And I’ll try to come the night before, too. But,” he adds, because he needs to know, “that means yes to afterwords, right?”

“We’ll see,” Keith says, but he’s smiling, so Lance has a pretty good feeling that he’s going to agree. 

☾ ☽

Except… The day before the full moon, one of the pups gets sick. Real sick. So sick that Lance is appointed babysitter, and instead of venturing into the forest to visit Keith and try to sooth his nerves, Lance is instead barricaded in a room with the pup to nurse her back to health while the rest of the pack rests after a successful hunt.

“Are you kidding me?” Lance had objected. “Why do I have to watch her?”

“You didn’t help us hunt last night,” Veronica had told him. “You’ve gotten lazy. You keep, like, going off on your own. We took down a moose. A moose! Those things are massive, and I think they’re growing bigger around here because we scared all of their predators off. I’m tired. It’s your turn.”

“But -” Lance starts.

“Oh, c’mon,” Veronica complains. 

Lance grits his teeth. “Fine.”

But now the pup is asleep, knocked out from the medicine that Lance had found for her, and he’s left alone with his thoughts. Well, his worry.

Because Keith is alone right now. Keith, who Lance promised he would take care of today, stuck in his cave because of the sun burning bright in the sky, and probably hurt because Lance had no way of telling him his predicament. Keith, who is alone with his thoughts, alone with the wolf and the vampire fighting in his own mind. Keith, who has to shift tomorrow, for the first time since he tried with Lance, who was supposed to be getting more tips today.

Keith, who might have to shift alone, just him and the vampire and the wolf growing ever stronger and more agitated as the moon becomes fuller in the sky, if Lance can’t get away tomorrow. 

Lance doesn’t know what will happen, but he does know that it probably won’t be good.

☾ ☽

Lance is on his toes all day.

The pup is still sick, so Lance is stuck at home. Even as the sun gets higher in the sky, even when he should be heading into the woods to hang out with Keith, he’s with most of his pack hanging out around the pup’s room. It’s practically torture, and Lance can barely concentrate, too worried about both Keith and the little girl. 

“Get your head out of your ass,” Veronica scolds him. She sends him into the kitchen to get some more water for the pup. 

As Lance walks down the stairs in the main house, he silently curses werewolves for being such social creatures. It is perfectly acceptable to hang around by yourself if there’s nothing happening, but the second something goes wrong or there’s something to celebrate (no matter how small), one has to be present. It means that Lance can’t get away to visit Keith, even though he promised. Lance just hopes Keith isn’t too worried; he has no way of letting Keith know that he’s going to be late. 

Allura is in the kitchen, too, leaning on the counter with a blue mug clutched in one hand and her phone in the other. Lance offers her a smile as he grabs a glass from the cupboard and dumps a few ice cubes from the freezer inside before filling it with tap water, but his pack leader doesn’t seem to notice, frowning down at her hands.

“You good?” Lance asks.

“Hm?” Allura looks up. “Oh, Lance. Yes, everything’s fine. I just received a call from our neighbors, but now they aren’t picking up, that’s all.”

Lance chuckles. “That’s normal,” he says.

Allura smiles. “Yes.”

Lance turns to head out of the kitchen, but Allura’s phone begins to ring loudly, spasming in her hands. He pauses, curious, and watches her lift it up to her ear, the glass of ice water perspiring in his hand.

Allura frowns, staring out into the forest. Her silver hair shines in the sunlight, and for a second Lance is reminded of Keith in the actinine flower field, the moon and the stars reflected in his eyes. He shakes the image in his head off as Allura asks, “Were-vamp?”

Lance freezes.  _ Keith _ . His fingers tighten around the glass and he stares wide-eyed as Allura’s face tightens and she purses her lips. “Alright. I’ll alert my pack and bring them over. Thank you.”

“There’s a…?” Lance trails off. He hopes that it’s not obvious that he’s more worried about Keith than the other pack.

Allura sighs. “Werewolf-vampire-hybrid. Some idiot must have been bitten or turned.” Lance winces. Poor Keith. “Apparently it’s gone into their territory and is trying to drain their wolves.” She places her mug in the sink and begins to pull her hair up into a bun. “I’m going to alert the pack.”

“I’m coming, right?” Lance asks, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I don’t need to babysit, or anything?”

Allura pauses to think about it then nods. “Yeah. I’ll probably leave anyone under fifty back here.”

Lance lets out a breath. He can still salvage this. Alright. “Sounds like a plan, boss.”

Allura snorts and briskly walks out of the kitchen, calling up and down the hallways of the house for their packmates. She sounds worried, but Lance can tell that she’s trying to hide it in order to not freak out the rest of the pack. 

Lance rushes up to the pup’s room, spilling some water onto the scratched wooden floors, and skids into the doorframe, wincing as his skull knocks against the corner. He holds the glass to her face while she drinks, and then leaves it with Shay, a pretty recent member of the pack, before gesturing out the door and slipping on socked feet back into the hallway and down the stairs. Allura’s urgent call has summoned most of the pack, save a few, and she stands tall and regal in the center of a sprawling mass of mismatched couches that has taken over the living room like a moldy growth. 

As Allura explains the situation, Lance gets more and more fidgety. He shifts on one of the couches next to Hunk and picks at his cuticles, rubbing his fingers on his shorts as they start to bleed. Hunk sends him a concerned look, but Lance brushes it off, fiddling with the ends of his t-shirt and trying to avoid thinking about any of the werewolves here hurting Keith. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” one of Lance’s pack members asks. “Were-vampires can be pretty dangerous, if the rumors are anything to go by. Any I doubt any sane werewolf would bite a vampire, so it might be some power ploy by the vampire coven that just moved in.” Lance winces, hopefully imperceptibly. 

Allura shakes her head. “I doubt it. It was probably a rogue who didn’t know what they were doing. But Colleen’s pack has helped us before, and a were-vamp is a big threat. We can’t let it roam free. This is settled.” She stands and gestures to the door. “Transform quickly. We need to help them.”

Lance is the first out the door and the first to complete the painful process that is turning into a wolf. He waits impatiently for the rest of the pack at the edge of their yard and stays near the head of their group as Allura leads the way into Colleen’s territory, ignoring the odd looks that the rest of his pack sends him as he stresses along the way. 

The further they get into Colleen’s land, the quieter the pack gets. It’s rare that such a big threat falls upon their pack; the last time there was serious conflict was with the old vampire coven they drove out maybe twenty years ago. Lance’s nerves spike in his stomach, making his mouth taste sour and his ears lay flat against his head. 

“We’re not going to kill him, right?” he asks Allura worriedly. A few days ago he might have tried to be more subtle, but the idea that Keith could be in danger -  _ is  _ in danger - makes him run more on instinct than logic. “Like, we’ll just try to subdue him?”

“We’ll do whatever we need to do,” Allura tells him. She flicks her tail at him. “Aren’t you usually itching for a fight?”

Lance winces. “Not really,” he mumbles, but falls back a little bit so that Allura can’t hear him. 

When they get to the center of the territory, they start seeing signs of conflict. There’s bushes crushed, scuff marks on the ground, dirt flung up from claws. A dark smell is in the air, metallic and warm, like the smell of iron baking on the beach. Lance bristles, legs trembling - with what, he doesn’t know. Fear? Adrenaline? - and smells… himself?  _ Oh, shit _ . He had forgotten that he’d heavily scented Keith the night before the pup got sick; something about comfort when they were cuddling in the middle of their cave. 

“Lance?” he hears one of his packmates ask aloud behind him, and he takes a deep breath. 

He can’t believe he’s going to do this. Lance has never once wanted his pack to fail, but he needs,  _ needs  _ to find Keith before they do. He’s calmed the were-vamp before, and he knows he can do it again, and if Keith can prove that he’s not dangerous, the pack might back off. Lance can save them - all of them.

“Coran,” he hears Allura say. “Call Shiro. I think we need to get the coven in on this, too.”

Lance whips around. “What?” he asks. 

Allura frowns at him. She looks suspicious, and Lance has a sinking feeling that’s she’s piecing it all together; the days and nights that Lance has been absent, his distractedness the past month, his worry over the well-being of their enemy. “I think we’ll need a stake.”

“A stake?” Lance yelps. “The vampires just - have the weapons that kill them on hand?”

“They have wars between their covens too,” Allura says. “And we can’t really hold them in our paws. Plus, there hasn’t been a were-vampire in hundreds of years, and none close to me; who knows what strength they’re packing?”

“Tell them to bring a silver one,” one of the older werewolves says. “It has a combination of werewolf and vampire weaknesses.”

“I thought stakes had to be wooden,” Lance says desperately, pulling at straws as he struggles to think of a way to save Keith before his pack attacks him. 

“A silver tipped stake, then,” the wolf amends. 

“No! No, no, no,” Lance barks. “What if we tried to settle this peacefully? We - we don’t need to  _ kill  _ him!”

“Lance,” says the old werewolf. “It’s the humane thing to do. It’s the  _ safe  _ thing to do. Werewolf-vampire-hybrids are notorious for going crazy and turning on everyone. Vampires and werewolves hate each other, and when their brain is constantly at war until they go mad with it. It’s like those two beta fish you had when you were a child; you and Veronica put the two of them in the same tank and they killed each other. That’s what’s going on in that were-vamp’s brain right now.”

“We can save him, though,” Lance objected. “There’s - there’s gotta be a way to save him. We can calm him down, right? Teach the werewolf and the vampire in him to get along?”

“It’s instincts,” says the old werewolf. “You can suppress them, but they’ll always be there.” His eyes soften under his bright ginger hair and he smiles softly, mustache twitching.

“Fuck,” Lance says, glaring at the ground. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, and then - there.  _ Keith _ . 

He can do this. He can save all of them! He has no doubt that some of his pack would fall should Keith attack them - he was able to hold Lance off before he was bitten; there’s no telling what he might be able to do now. He just has to calm down Keith, and then they’ll see that he’s not a threat, and everything will be fine. It has to be.

With that, Lance turns and plunges into the woods.

The branches whip at his fur and sometimes he trips, legs shaky with fear, panting loudly as he slips and skids over the dark floor of the forest. He barks Keith’s name, but gets no reply, but his own scent is getting stronger, along with… another one. 

Keith’s fear.

Lance spurs his legs to go faster. He’s practically flying over the forest floor, legs almost collapsing under the pressure every time they smack down onto the forest floor, seeing the broken trees and the blood smears and puddles on the ground and the trampled ferns and the torn fur becoming more and more frequent and cursing all the while.

_ This is all your fault _ , the voice in his head tells him.  _ You bit him. You infected him with this. He’s right; it is a curse, and you brought him into this, and you’re the reason he’s being hunted. _

It’s in Colleen’s town that he finds Keith.

Most werewolf packs arrange their homes in a circle, doors facing inwards, heavily scented between the houses in order to ward off other creatures. In the center is a grass pavilion, mowed and traveled on, a sort of safe haven for the pups to play and the adults to relax. 

Keith is standing in the center, snarling, hunched over the body of a wolf. Both of their fur is matted and dark, stained with maroon liquid, and Keith’s face is buried in the wolf’s neck. He looks bigger than Lance remembers; the night when Lance had chased him through the forest, he’d looked small, meek, almost, even though he was as tall as Lance’s shoulders. How, holding himself high and his fur puffed out to seem even larger, he looks like a direwolf, like something from a mythical nightmare that some old dude dreamed up hundreds of years ago. Even now, though, when Keith looks like some sort of anti-hero, Lane still can’t help but think there's something poisonously beautiful about him.

“Keith!” Lance barks. 

Keith jerks his head up, teeth bared. His fangs aren’t white anymore; they’re red, stained and bloody, dripping like little waterfalls from his mouth. They look comically long compared to the rest of his normal wolf fangs, but there’s nothing comical about this scene; instead, Lance just feels worry and fear in the pit of his stomach, sour and unpleasant. 

“Keith,” Lance says again. He trots into the clearing, keeping his tail low to the ground in order to look less threatening, pulling his ears back against his head and trying to look as small as possible. 

The wolf growls, stepping protectively over the body underneath in the same way Lance’s pack might defend a moose or a deer that they’ve caught. Lance guesses that’s how Keith sees them; prey, or potential threats. Nothing in between.

“Keith,” Lance repeats, like he thinks that Keith will just come back to himself if he says his name enough. 

The wolf - because that’s what it is; Lance can’t recognize anything Keith in this animal, not even his fur, turned almost black with dried blood and dirt, and his eyes are yellow and empty - bristles as Lance gets closer, lips pulled back and tail lashing agitatedly behind him. Lance stops advancing, stays at the edge of the clearing and watches openly as Keith steps over his body.

Keith lifts up his head, nostrils flaring, and sniffs the air. Lance relaxes somewhat, a small part of him convinced that Keith will recognize him and stop this attack, stop whatever he’s doing, but there’s still only wild wolf when Keith levels him with a glare that could burn through tungsten. 

And then he lunges.

Lance, of course, is not prepared. Even though he knew that Keith isn’t in his right mind, somehow he still believed that at least a small part of him in the back of his mind would recognize Lance from the time they’d spent together the past few weeks, but it’s proven false quickly. Instead, Lance is frozen with shock, and only moves once Keith’s massive wolf form crashes into him, sending him toppling back and scrabbling away in order to avoid those snapping vampire teeth. 

Keith pursues him, snapping his jaws and making a weird noise that seems to be a hybrid of his snarl and a hiss, muscles rippling under his dark fur coat. Lance races away, dodging behind a tipped over lawn chair scattered on the ground. 

This isn’t good. Maybe Lance was wrong; maybe Keith is unsalvageable, bad to the bone, just this unthinking shell of the person he’d been before. The idea that Keith will never again hang out with Lance, that he’ll never get that post-full-moon date that he’d been promised makes Lance’s stomach swoop and a pang strike his chest. 

Lance feels Keith’s teeth scrape at his hind leg, and he lashes out, scraping his back paw against Keith’s snapping jaws, before jerking them out of the way and pressing onward. But he’s tired already, having sprinted over, and Keith has the combined strength of both a werewolf and a vampire. He stands no chance, and he already knows this, which means he has to either find a way to calm the wolf, or… give up, he guesses. Only now does he regret sprinting away from his pack, though at least this way he can say he did everything he could to try and save Keith, though that won’t really be a problem if he doesn’t survive this.

Lance can’t outrun Keith. He knows this; has experienced it before, has seen the effects of the combined powers of vampire and werewolf biology. He only ever won races against Keith when the vampire or werewolf in him distracted him and caused him to veer off the path, itch at his skin, rub at his gums. The danger that the wolf now perceives Keith in - the danger that he thinks  _ Lance  _ is - is not going to let those two sides argue; every part of Keith’s wolf-vampire brain will not be placed solely on survival.

Which means Lance’s only chance is to make Keith not see him as a threat. He needs Keith to recognize him; see him as  _ Lance _ , as the werewolf who he’s spent the last month hanging out with, bantering with, confiding in. 

Lance skids on the slippery grass, claws ripping up its roots as he struggles to stop himself. Then he turns and heads right back towards Keith. 

The werewolf-vampire isn’t expecting it. Lance barges into his chest and sends them both staggering backwards on the dirt, tripping over their own paws and wincing at the collision. Keith almost tips over, a little more unsteady on four paws than Lance, and Lance uses this to his advantage to spring at Keith again and tackle him to the ground.

They roll in circles, like a cliche fight between two dogs, Keith biting and scratching and Lance just trying to escape injury. Lance grunts as Keith’s shoulder grinds him down into the grass, and the were-vamp takes that opportunity to shove him down and flop over him, crushing his legs into the ground. Lance yelps as Keith nips at his shoulder, wriggling as the sting flares through his body, but Keith is heavier than the average werewolf and in the position he has Lance in, he can’t escape.

One of Keith’s legs is sticking uncomfortably into Lance’s side, and he snaps at the were-vamp’s tail with his jaws. Keith growls, the rumbling from his chest feeling like the base that comes blasting out of maxed-out speakers. Lance goes limp, whining again. 

He goes stiff as he sees Keith lowers his nose down to Lance’s neck, mouth slightly open, those long fangs flashing darkly. He can feel the were-vamp’s breath tickling at his fur, ruffling it in either direction, and he begins to shift again, whining at Keith. 

The fangs are cold against his skin, easily parting his fur and resting delicately against his skin, sending shivers down Lance’s spine. Lance braces himself for the puncture, but then Keith freezes.

The fangs leave, taking their coldness with them, and Lance feels Keith’s nose brush his neck instead. He sniffs loudly, pressing it over, and Lance automatically relaxes at the scenting. Keith makes a small, comforting noise, pressing his face more firmly into Lance’s fur, and asks softly, “Lance?”

Lance jerks up. “ _ Keith _ ,” he says. 

The wolf pulls back, curling up into Lance’s side and pressing his nose to the underside of Lance’s muzzle. “What happened?”

Lance sits up, tossing one leg over Keith’s shoulders in as much of a hug as he can offer as a wolf. “God, Keith,” he says, “you… The werewolf and the vampire got violent, I guess.”

Keith flinches. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I - I couldn’t control myself, and -”

“Shh,” Lance says, pressing his nose to Keith’s neck to do some scenting of his own, trying to ignore how the fur is clumpy and smells like iron. “I know, tusks. It’s alright.” 

“I really didn’t mean to,” Keith says. “You didn’t show up the night before, and I got worried, and then you didn’t show up today and I guess my feelings got the better of me, and I didn’t know what to do, and I guess my panic took over or something because the wolf started freaking out and I couldn’t stop it. It made this seem like the best option, you know?” He presses his face back into Lance and keeps rambling, so Lance nuzzles him and makes soothing noises and nips at his side gently as he spirals further and further, murmuring comforts under his breath. 

It’s because of Keith that Lance doesn’t notice the other presences in the field until it’s too late. His blubbering apologies and distressed scent fills Lance’s senses and masks the appearance of other people, the wolf pack standing at the edges of the trees staring down at the two in disappointment, the vampires filling in the gaps between Lance’s packmates with their bloodshot eyes and weapons clutched in their hands. His nerves are too frayed to pay attention to anything but Keith.

Which means he doesn’t see the vampire until he’s already lunging across the blood-stained grass, going at impossible speeds. He’s got dark hair, one white shock on the front of his head like part of him had started greying before the rest, a scar across his nose, and bulging arm muscles raising something in the air. It’s wooden and pointed, glinting in the moonlight, shining like a brown and silver beacon and pointed straight at Keith’s heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to apologize now for my bad pacing and my inability to keep a scene in one mood and all the other problems I have with this fic lol. Let's just pretend the massive plot holes that I've completely left alone aren't there thanks. <3 Please feel free to give me tips on how to improve (this fic needs lots of help lmao) or really just any feedback. Thanks <3
> 
> I'm sorry for ending this on a cliffhanger, but it was getting kinda long (it was supposed to be like 7k oops) and I wanted to finish it before February ended. At least the ending kind of gives homage to the title. I might pick this back up again someday, but for right now I'm going to say that it's finished. Edit 3/21/20: I am working on a second part! I don’t know when it’s going to come out, but it is happening (if I can finish it). :)
> 
> Also, disclaimer, the characters in this might seem a little OOC because I haven't actually watched the entirety of Voltron and am more familiar with the fandom versions of the characters than the canon. Plus, please let me know if there are any other warnings you think I should add and I will do so right away.


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